CD Update & North Eastern Tour!

Greetings from Echo Mountain Studio, just doing the final mixing of “Ravens and Crows” which is coming together in a big way.  In addition to being an incredible recording facility, Echo Mountain, represents everything about what makes Asheville such a great music town. The diversity of talented and interesting people from all genres of music coming through that place, the relaxed atmosphere—it’s so nice to be there laying down tracks and mixing the record. A special thanks to our incredible engineer Jon Ashley and studio manager Jessica Tomasin for making everything possible!

When you get your own personal copy of “Ravens and Crows” (and incidentally you can pre-order autographed copies, with free shipping, on our website in one week) you will get a feel for the experience of laying down these tunes, a true labor of love for all involved. The project benefited tremendously from the heroic commitment of our producer Travis Book who kindly squeezed in over a week of his time between his touring schedule with the Infamous Stringdusters, immersing himself in the world of Dehlia Low (for better and for worse!). His presence improved the quality of the music and the experience of making it, particularly during the more stressful moments in the booth! As Travis likes to say “music is hard, music is so much fun!”

Although the disk won’t be released until late June 2011, you can hear some of our new tunes live if you come out to see us on our upcoming NE tour! We’re pleased to be heading up to Massachusetts with stops in New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia in the coming week. The full tour schedule is listed on our website at www.dehlialow.com. Highlights include a shared show with a great Americana band The Steel Wheels at the Sellersville Theater, a beautiful venue in Sellersville PA, a fun show at the Bena Country Store in Hayes, VA  followed by a number of very cool and well-known Americana venues in NY and MA. Then looking forward to returning to the lovely Mockingbird Roots Music Hall in Staunton, VA. We'll be in Boston, Rochester, Buffalo, Wellsville, and NYC! These are all new markets for us... meaning, we don't know anyone! So if you've got friends or family in the area, please let them know we're coming! Thanks! 

As always, thanks for the support, the emails, coming out to shows, telling your friends about us. We couldn't do it otherwise!

Dehlia Low-Down::March 2011 BIG NEWS!

NEWS FLASH: Dehlia Low Signs With Rebel Records!

Yes, we’re thrilled to announce that we will be recording our next record with the good folks at Rebel! We will begin recording our fourth record, which will be titled “Ravens and Crows”, this Friday in Asheville, with an anticipated release date in June or early July. We are pleased to welcome Travis Book of the Infamous Stringdusters to our team as a producer on the album, which will be recorded at Regal Music Group studios in Arden, NC.

We are especially honored to be with Rebel for this recording. Rebel is the oldest and most revered label in bluegrass music, and their catalog includes the some of  the very best bluegrass artists of all time. Name your favorite bluegrass artist and they’re sure to have found their way to the Rebel label at some point in their career: Ralph Stanley, the Stanley Brothers, the Country Gentlemen, Del McCoury, IIIrd Time Out, J.D. Crowe, Larry Sparks, Rhonda Vincent, Ricky Skaggs, Seldom Scene, the Steep Canyon Rangers and Tony Rice, to give you a feel for their role in bluegrass history. The Freeman’s, a father-and-son team, are as active in capturing new bluegrass acts as preserving old ones, and re-releases of fine old recordings of traditional music dating back to the early 20th century have been a major focus of their business from the beginning with artists like Tommy Jarrell, Charlie Poole and many many others. Their catalog can be found at www.countysales.com (which incidentally is a great online source for old time and bluegrass music, so be sure to order from them to support this great business, also connected to Rebel!)

We very much look forward to celebrating this major event for our band with you on our CD release tours this summer. We are having a home town Pre-release party May 27th at the Grey Eagle in Asheville and plan to have the first copies of our new CD available then! (We will also start the pre-ordering process on our website within the next few weeks. Pre-order and you’ll get an autographed copy shipped to your front door as soon as we have them in our hands.) Our wonderful booking agents John Laird and Lucy Hailslip of the Americana Agency are working incredibly hard on putting together an exciting summer tour for us. We already have plans to hit New England,  Northern California, New Orleans, and Canada! The summer schedule is still coming together so be sure to check our website for updates on where we’ll be.  The next place to catch us live is the 19th of March when we’ll be up in Moravian Falls, NC at Blue Ridge Big Sky Music near Wilkesboro.

Already it’s been an exciting year for us, the highlight being Nashville’s Music City Roots on February 16th that we played on our way to the Folk Alliance International conference. (check out a video of our performance at www.musiccityroots.com at minute 33!). With every gig we play we reflect on the opportunity to be a part of some of the most special things in life. For example, a recent performance in the Buncombe County Schools was pronounced “AWE-some!!!” by several tough looking fourth grade boys. Last weekend’s house concert was hosted by the Erwins in their home in Morganton, NC which dates back to the Civil War. Mrs. Erwin has a fiddle club for girls and three of them came to the concert. Quite an honor to be able to play for these beautiful girls, ages I’d guess 7, 10 and 15, who seemed so excited about music and their fiddle club. Thank you for sharing these experiences with us! If you’re interested in ever hosting a house concert of your own, we have enjoyed these and can talk with you further about how to host such an event.

Our sincere thanks to our fans for all that you do to support our music!

December 2010 Low Down

December 2010 Low Down

Dear friends,

During this season of both being thankful and celebrating the year, we wanted to let you know how much we appreciate the support of our project this year and appreciate all that you do to make it possible to continue. Thanks for the emails, for spreading the word to your friends, for suggesting us to promoters and radio announcers, for ordering our cds online, sending us pictures and videos from shows…thanks so much for your dedication to supporting independent musicians. You are a key part of the music-making process!

It’s been an incredible year thinking back to our major accomplishments: Cabin Stage at Merlefest, watching Alison Krauss perform at Gettysburg just hours after our set on the very same stage, and releasing a new live album in November. But some of the most satisfying experiences have been smaller gigs where we get to really connect, like playing at the town square in Limon, CO and Jonesborough, TN, at the 1920s schoolhouse in Stecoah, NC, and our cd release at the Get Down in West Asheville with friends and family. We have enjoyed seeing you this year and look forward to seeing you in 2011!

That brings us to our major news, which is that we have just committed to exclusive representation with the Americana Agency for booking (www.americanaagency.com)! John Laird and Lucy Haislip are a dynamic and experienced team that have already put together a great northeast tour for us in April and are working on a lot of other exciting opportunities for us in 2011, so check our calendar from time to time at www.dehlialow.com and see where we will be playing in your area next year! We are just starting to work on putting all the pieces together to start on our next studio album this winter and are hoping to release in the Spring of the coming year... we’ll keep you posted on the progress…we’ll say this: there are some promising things on the horizon.

Best to you for a wonderful end to this year!

Dehlia Low

P.S. Something that you could do in your spare time in front of the computer this winter (I know, like we all need more suggestions about how to waste time on the computer) --that is really helpful to us-- is suggesting our Facebook Page to your friends. If you look at our page:

http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Dehlia-Low/25031814598

Right under the photo, there is a "Suggest to Friends" option, if you click that, your personal friends list will pop up, and you can click on people that you think might like our band, and they'll get a page suggestion from you.

Additionally, just attaching our page link (the one above) to your profile introduces our band to all of your friends, who may not have heard of us. Then hopefully they'll like it, they'll be impressed with your great taste in music, and we'll gain a new fan. ;) We are big believers in the one person at a time approach. You can do that in your status update box, just hit the link icon and paste this in there:

http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Dehlia-Low/25031814598

Click "Attach" and our smiling, appreciative faces will show up on your profile. ;)

Thank you!!

October Low-Down

After a busy summer it was time for Dehlia to get to work in finalizing the live cd that they CLAIMED they had been working on all spring. Well it’s not a lie, folks, the boxes just arrived on the porch any with the finished product and we’re excited to share it!

The back story: beginning in February we enlisted the help of Russell Anders, a talented Asheville-area sound engineer that as an added bonus serves the role of a general balm for pre-gig jitters and other sources of anxiety. Whether it was the details of his plans for a flea market music tour or his marketing idea of baby chick paperweights, he always had a way of shifting the focus from our VERY IMPORTANT live CD to something inane, hysterical, or, at the very least, distracting.

We recorded shows at the Down Home in Johnson City, TN, the Mockingbird in Staunton,VA, and at the Grey Eagle right here in Asheville and pulled our favorite tracks from each show. If you were there, maybe you’ll hear yourself, so you’ll definitely want to check it out when we release the CD on November 2^nd! You will be able to get an advanced copy at The Pisgah Brewery in Black Mountain where we will play with a few other bands on Oct. 23^rd. On November 5^th—we’re having a party at a great new West Asheville venue, the Get Down, located on Haywood Ave. near Patton. (Formerly Cowboy’s Nightlife; currently our favorite neighborhood dive bar with such wonderful owners and character!) We’re charging $5, and throwing a party to celebrate our live album release! If you can’t make the show, you can visit our website, www.dehlialow.com, to preview a few of the tracks. The CD will be available for online purchase, on CD Baby and iTunes soon so don’t hold back…order your very own copy!

Other big news is that we’re honored to be included in the Merlefest Benefit Compilation CD through Festivalink.net benefiting the Bluegrass Trust Fund. We’re on the same CD as the Kruger Brothers, Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers, Doc Watson, the Duhks, and Sam Bush! Here is the link to that CD: http://flink.livedownloads.com/show.asp?show=5496

We sincerely hope you will help us celebrate this new project by coming out to say hey sometime in October or November!

Our Merlefest Cabin Stage Set is availble through Festival Link!

You can now get our Merlefest debut, recorded live on the Cabin Stage on CD, or MP3's at Festival Link! We're so excited about this! http://flink.livedownloads.com/show.asp?show=5272

Dehlia Low-Down ::: July 2010

Sitting here listening to the sounds of mid-summer, rain and morning birds and kids playing outside, the Tour de France on television, still-cool breezes coming through a half-opened window, the whir of the ceiling fan. It just goes so quickly, each year more quickly, but this year especially quickly as we voraciously tear through our summer calendar seeing lots of different towns, meeting new fans, friends, and fellow musicians along the way. We’ve enjoyed performing close to home recently in anticipation of our big road trip this month to Colorado!

Fourth of July weekend was a blast, beginning with our Second Annual Gerton Bluegrass Show, where we tried and hopefully succeeded in following the marvelous time we had last year! The Laughing Waters Retreat Center was an incredible venue complete with, yes you guessed it, a gurgling creek running behind the building that cooled beer very nicely. The Hickory Nut community wasted no time in hitting the dance floor and we thoroughly enjoyed seeing all of you a second year in a row! Let’s keep it up!

Dehlia Low made a sentimental appearance at the first Shindig on the Green of the season during the holiday weekend as it returned to its downtown location on the Roger McGuire Green in Asheville. Thanks to the Folk Heritage Committee for their continuing support for our group, going back to our very first performance ever as a band! It’s always a pleasure to reconnect with the folks at Shindig, and they work very hard to keep the event going each year and for good reason…the crowds swelled to an estimated 8,000 enjoying mountain music and dancing.

Finally, the WNCW 21^st birthday jam was a very interesting, hilarious, and exciting opportunity for us to appear at some great regional venues (Handlebar and Orange Peel!). DL appeared with an eclectic mix of bands that included some local favorites like Will Straun, Billy Sewell, and Eliza Lynn as well as rock and blues acts from outside the region. DL did some unprecedented things like playing with a drum set and filling the swaying-snapping-tambourine shaking-backup section to a heartfelt rendition of “The Weight” (incriminating pictures available on our Facebook page). Many thanks to the fine folks with Delta Moon and Gandalf Murphy for the great time, and of course, to our favorite radio station WNCW and all the sponsors of the show!

This weekend we’ll be appearing alongside Peter Rowan, Tony Rice, and Dailey & Vincent at the White Oak Bluegrass Festival in Cleveland, TN. http://www.whiteoakbluegrass.com/

If you are in the front range area, we will be among you soon and hope to see you at one of our shows! On our way through Knoxville on Monday, you can hear us live on WDVX’s Blue Plate Special. You can listen online at noon at:

http://www.wdvx.com/programs/blueplate.html

We'll be appearing for a concert in the park in Limon, CO on Tuesday in the town square before heading to Boulder Wednesday where we hope you’ll join us for an outdoor house concert/party on July 21st starting at 5:00pm with house band Trailer Grove. Hope you can join us! It will be at a farmhouse at 7648 Arapahoe Rd. in Boulder 80303 (East Boulder near 75th and Arapahoe). Thursday we’ll be in Ft Collins at Avogadro’s Number. Then…hope to catch up with you at Rockygrass…we need your support as we compete in the Rockygrass Band Competition! Before heading home, we’re going to help DL superfans Sue and Paul Raab celebrate their 25^th wedding anniversary at a private event in Boulder…thanks Sue and Paul for helping to round out the trip!

Now that DL travels with several iphones, keep up with our travels on our Facebook page! Until next time…

Anya, and DL

Dehlia Low-Down ::: June 2010

June has been an awesome month for DL so far, starting with a great show at the Reel House Cinema and Draft in Boone! Casey Pond has a revamped the former Dragonfly Theatre now offering good food (featuring my new food fetish, homemade pimento cheese) and beer on draft. They also have great uniforms, and I am treasuring my new Reel House staff shirt (thanks Casey!). We had a great show and got a chance to see some old friends like Matt Davis from the Black Cat, where DL played one of its first shows in 2007! Look for some great music to come through the Reel House this year.

From Boone we headed to Aaron’s hometown Winston-Salem for an appearance at The Garage, which is a very cool venue with good sound and a great sound engineer. Johnson’s Crossroad warmed up the stage and sounded awesome while we hung with Aaron’s friends, family and some old-time-obsessed Kiwis. It was a great turnout with lots of new and old friends. Thanks Winston for turning out even with the downpour!

The Rooster’s Wife was a great way to finish out the weekend. Aberdeen NC is one of those places that is just hot come this time of year. But people love their porch time and relaxing to enjoy roots music. The threat of rain drove us into their indoor concert venue that opens out onto a covered patio and it created an amazing atmosphere for a humid summer Sunday evening concert. They served us home cooked food and people of all ages turned up with their picnics. If you get a chance to attend one of their concerts, it’s worth it, they have a great lineup and atmosphere!

We had a working vacation in Charleston for a couple of appearances at Home Team BBQ with a wonderful guest bass player, Jessica Smith. The ocean was heavenly but Folly Beach parking tickets and sunburns left something to be desired. Finished up the week with a performance in Highlands, NC…thanks to the Dave Landis and Highlands friends for making the PAC concert such a success!

COMING UP for us is the national release of our performance at last year’s Jammin’ at Hippie Jack’s festival. This will air on WCTE Channel 22 out of Cookeville TN and on regional cable and Direct and Dish Satellite throughout middle Tennessee and into Nashville. The program is scheduled to begin Thursday July 1st at 7:30 PM and Saturday the 3rd at 9PM! The remaining affiliates will begin airing in July and continue with individual schedules. To find out if your local PBS station carries the Jammin’ at Hippie Jack’s series, visit myhippiejack.com. There is also information on the website about how to request that your local station pick it up.

LASTLY we hope you’ll join us for our Second Annual Gerton Bluegrass Show on FRIDAY JULY 2ND at 7:30PM! Gerton is located between Asheville and Chimney Rock on Highway 74A at the newly unveiled Laughing Waters Retreat Center! Complete details are available at their website http://laughingwatersnc.com. It is a family-friendly event so bring the kids!

As always, thanks for your support, your attendance, your enthusiasm, your encouragement, and your help in spreading the word about out music to your friends!